“Of course,” I rumbled. It needn’t be said, but let him ease his own fears for her at my expense. For her first time, I would have changed everything. I’d have spent the day worshipping between her thighs, making her come again and again until she couldn’t take it a second longer. As if preparing a sacrifice, I’d have bathed her in ambrosia and milk and honey. Massaged her taut muscles. Kissed her. I would have readied her properly, laid her on a bed of flower petals while Aedan and Cato huffed and rolled their eyes, forever unimpressed with my notion of romance.
Let them scoff.
Finally, they would understand—with her, all my gentle, romantic practice would make sense.
And then they would do it, too. In their own ways, these stubborn fools would worship her.
Our reality was so stark, so bleak, but it softened around the edges somewhat as Ileana braced one hand on my chest, then nudged tentatively back toward my cock. Swollen lower lip snagged between her teeth, she stilled when the tip poked her entrance, inhaling sharply, and looked back to me. Maybe for support. Maybe for permission. I could provide both if she needed it—yet she suddenly lost herself in the wet around my mouth, her juices painting my lips, my cheeks, my chin.
I let them be, for I loved the smell of her right there. My sweetness. My beauty. Food and wine and blood would never taste as it once had now that I’d tasted her.
“Tell me when to slow, Ileana.” My whisper startled her—made her jerk herself back so that my cock slipped just into her slick entrance. She stiffened, eyes wide with panic, and despite the need shredding me apart inside, the clock counting down, I stole a few precious seconds to sweep her thick black hair over her shoulders, to bask in her gold-and-emerald eyes, to pinch her sharp little chin. “Use me. Set yourself free.”
Virginity was a damning chain in this world. Our supernatural cousins hunted for it, paid handsomely for it. Her order used it to their advantage. It mattered not to me if she had never mated once in her life or bedded a thousand lovers before us. She was ours now. Be rid of the damn thing and fly.
Familiar fingers brushed my cock—certainly not hers. No, these were far cooler, far firmer. Confident. Aedan. While I stroked her thighs, Aedan held me aloft and Cato crouched by her side, easing her onto my shaft as time, or the lack thereof, pressed in on this miserable little room like a choking smog. Ileana gasped when I stretched her, and I closed my eyes, pleasure spiking in my core and addling my brain, then fought the violent urge to pound up and scent virgin blood in the air. With all that I possessed, I resisted taking her as I truly wished—because we hadn’t spent the day readying her. One orgasm was just unacceptable, truth be told.
A second hand suddenly pressed into my chest, and I glanced down at both of hers, so pale compared to my obsidian flesh, as she steadied herself—then eased down on her own. Brave creature. Strong. Sure of herself, pushing down, pausing briefly whenever she winced, all of us holding our collective breath until she sunk home.
“What a brave little magpie,” Cato praised, our thoughts aligned. Grinning, studying her through a hooded gaze, he stroked her cheek and kissed her shoulder. She didn’t know him well enough to ascertain the nuances just yet—but he fancied her. Deeply. If it wasn’t a piece of his body, he’d have yanked that horned crown off and placed it on her head.
“How the fuck did you manage that cock on your first try?” Aedan drawled. Despite his usual surface-level sneer, my brother said it as a compliment, and as he popped around her left side to nibble at her neck and cup her breast, he did so to worship—not to pry. Not to tease out information. Not to prolong the agony with my balls on the brink of implosion and the demonic lust in my heart surging and—
“D-do you want to have that conversation,” Ileana murmured, her lashes fluttering, her hands curling over my pecs, “or—”
“Or.” Cato’s hands cascaded down her figure, tracing her lovely curves all the way to her hips. “Very much or, goddess.”
And there it was.
My kingly brother was gone.
Together, he and Aedan rocked her, helping her find a gentle pace that while not as slow as a virgin deserved riding my substantial shaft, it did the trick under the circumstances. I, meanwhile, caressed her thighs and locked onto her eyes, whether she looked at me or not. Every so often our gazes met, and she shivered, dipping a toe into the darkness before leaping back out, uncertain but curious.
I could die happy, here, now, buried deep inside a creature who was beauty unparalleled.
One day soon, she would find her inner lioness and roar, proving once and for all why she had been chosen by the hands of Fate to be our mate.
By the time her blushes returned, her nipples pebbled tight and her eyes clenched shut, Cato left Aedan to maintain our dance. He stood, and when he steered that raging erection to her, Ileana already had her mouth open, ready and waiting for him. They locked eyes—an impressive feat if she sensed he ruled the group with a fair fist. No fear there. No terror. Only want. They surrendered to it as he thrust his cock deep once, twice, three times, then retreated and hurried around behind her. Panic skittered across her features, and as Aedan backed off, I cuddled her to me, bathing her neck in the sweetest kisses, my arm locked around her lower back like a snare.
“We wouldn’t normally rush this,” Cato insisted as he arranged himself between my open thighs, her hips spread even wider now, her back arched in his favor. “But if we don’t mate you fully, there’s room for some other bastard to steal you.”
Ileana bucked and mewled when he smoothed her ass cheeks open, then looked to me. “S-steal me?”
“Never,” I whispered, a vow I’d keep until the end of time. She let out a soft breath, then stilled when Cato licked his fingers and thrust gently into her tightest hole.
“Mates are highly valued in leviathan society,” Aedan told her, suddenly by my head and cupping her chin, stroking her slightly parted lips with his thumb. “Honored. Prized. You’re like no other, Ileana.” I tilted my head back, impressed: never had he sounded so smitten. Never had he handled a lover with such tenderness. Never had affection made his eyes heavy and his voice rich. He was a monster—we all were—but for her, in this moment, he was salvation. “You’re ours, Ileana.”
“And we will claim you thusly,” I added as Cato swapped his fingers for his cock below. “And I swear to you, we will destroy all who stand between us.”
Those prison guards had ceased to exist the second I saw her. Let them hear my declaration. Let them ready themselves for battle if they dared keep her from us when the clock expired.
She blinked down at me, cheeks aflame, then brushed a trembling finger along my jaw—only to reel back and squeal as Cato worked his way into her. While we would never hurt her seriously, not even if she begged, this couldn’t be…
It must have been a lot, two large cocks for her first time.
So, while Cato claimed her there, Aedan and I soothed her here. He stroked her hair and massaged her shoulders, using that sharp tongue of his for good. I saw to her hips, her quivering thighs, and her frantic glances, easing up every so often to kiss her. No thrusting tongue. No snapping teeth. Just a gentle union of our lips that made her melt and moan, her fingers twisting sweetly into my white tresses, then jerking them with every inch Cato gained.
“Goddess,” he groaned with that final thrust, all of us jolting as he finally sank home, “you are a wonder.”